During the trial, which took place in a room at San Francisco\u2019s superior court, jurors were presented dueling portrayals of the protest. The assistant district attorney Angela Roze argued that the April 2024 demonstration blocked traffic for more than four hours, trapping motorists on the Golden Gate Bridge in an effort she characterized as comprising conspiracy and false imprisonment, the San Francisco Chronicle reported<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n The seven co-defendants who went to trial faced charges of felony conspiracy and misdemeanors for false imprisonment, unlawful assembly, obstructing a roadway and trespassing.<\/p>\n \u201cThe demonstration on the Golden Gate Bridge caused a level of safety risk, including extreme threats to the health and welfare of those trapped, that we as a society cannot ignore or allow,\u201d the San Francisco district attorney, Brooke Jenkins, said in a 2024 statement<\/a> when her office brought charges four months after the incident.<\/p>\n Defense attorneys, meanwhile, have maintained that protesters were acting out of a moral obligation to stop genocide and were doing what they could to halt Israeli strikes on Gaza<\/a> \u2013 including participation in a nationwide tax day protest of US financial and military aid to Israel.<\/p>\n The defendants turned to the bridge-blocking protest, they said, only after more traditional methods, such as calling their congressional representative and writing letters, went nowhere.<\/p>\n Dubbed the \u201cGolden Gate 26\u201d for the number of protesters arrested from the incident, charges against 19 arrestees were later dropped or deferred, meaning prosecution is put off and later dismissed if the accused complies with certain conditions, such as probation.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Around 2-3 times a day<\/p>\n Sign up to Breaking News US<\/p>\n Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Rachel Lederman, a senior attorney with the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a civil rights legal group that is supporting the defendants, said she was \u201cflabbergasted\u201d that prosecutors did not reduce the most serious felony charges to misdemeanors after it dismissed charges against 19 of the original co-defendants.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just outrageous and unprecedented that these seven people are continuing to be prosecuted for felony conspiracy for doing a fairly routine \u2013 for the Bay Area \u2013 civil disobedience action,\u201d Lederman said at the outset of the trial.<\/p>\n The Golden Gate Bridge transit authority made the unusual move of demanding restitution for toll revenue lost during the shutdown. Critics of the prosecution said the authority had never before requested restitution from a traffic-blocking protest on the bridge and cited it as another example of how protesters were being targeted for their pro-Palestinian views.<\/p>\n The San Francisco public defender\u2019s office, which represents two of the defendants, had publicly called out Jenkins\u2019 office for soliciting people via social media<\/a> to seek restitution for the protest.<\/p>\n The restitution claims were resolved before trial with individual defendants paying three- and low-four-figure sums.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2998.jpg\")
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